Arthur Big Boy Crudup, Delta Blind Billy, Papa Charlie McCoy. They sound like the stuff of legend, even before you get to those who indisputably are: the Howlin Wolfs, the Muddy Waters and the John Lee Hookers. The death, at 96, of David Honeyboy Edwards severs the last living link with the original blues of the Mississippi Delta, music which grew out of the sweltering bitterness of southern cotton fields yet conquered the world nonetheless. Honeyboy was there when the most legendary bluesman of the lot, Robert Johnson – the guitarist who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads where blues myth meets blues reality – drank the laced whiskey which killed him at just 27. It was the re-release of pre-war Johnson recordings in 1961 which reconnected modern song-writing and rock performance with its forgotten roots, by catching the ear of young musicians from Bob Dylan to Eric Clapton. The Mississippi's waters run down to the gulf of Mexico, but its music flowed north with the great migration of African Americans, passing through Memphis before going on to inspire the birth of Chicago blues. After Elvis hits such as Hound Dog, the classic Delta formula for lyrics – a brief, repeated refrain, and a longer rejoinder – got so familiar that no one bothered to ask where it had come from. The blues scale and 12-bar chord progression likewise became ubiquitous in pop. But nowhere are they put to better use than in those grainy ancient recordings, which marry sliding strings with voices full of grit.

• This article was amended on 31 August 2011 and 2 September 2011. The second mention of David Honeyboy Edwards originally misspelled Honeyboy as Honeybox. This has been corrected. In addition the name of the Elvis hit Hound Dog has been corrected from Houndog.